The Bills claimed defensive lineman Casey Rogers off waivers on Friday, the team announced.
The Giants waived Rogers on Thursday.
Rogers signed with the Giants in 2024 as undrafted free agent.
He appeared in two games for the team as a rookie, seeing action on 33 defensive snaps and nine on special teams. He had no stats.
Rogers spent five years in college playing for Nebraska (2019-21) and Oregon (2022-23). In two seasons in Eugene, Rogers played 27 games and recorded 56 tackles with 1.5 sacks and seven tackles for a loss.
Rogers originally committed to Syracuse to play lacrosse but decommitted and decided to attend Nebraska to play football.
The Bills have two-thirds of their 2025 draft class under contract.
The team announced six signings on Friday, including third-round defensive end Landon Jackson. Jackson was named second-team All-SEC after recording 6.5 sacks off the edge for Arkansas.
Buffalo also signed fifth-round defensive back Jordan Hancock, fifth-round tight end Jackson Hawes, sixth-round cornerback Dorian Strong, sixth-round offensive tackle Chase Lundt, and seventh-round wide receiver Kaden Prawther. All six players will be on four-year deals.
First-round corner Maxwell Hairston, second-round defensive tackle T.J. Sanders, and fourth-round defensive tackle Deone Walker remain unsigned.
The Jaguars made wide receiver Gabe Davis’ departure official, releasing him with a failed physical designation.
Davis tore the meniscus in his left knee in November and was expected to need six months to recover from the injury, which limited him to 10 games in his only season in Jacksonville. He caught 20 passes for 239 yards and two touchdowns in 2024.
The Jaguars designated Davis as a post-June-1 release, giving them a $5.7 million dead cap hit for this season. The team will see a $794,118 cap savings June 1.
Davis signed with the Jaguars after 163 catches for 2,730 yards and 27 touchdowns in four seasons with the Bills.
He should have interest on the free agent market once healthy.
University of Wilfrid Laurier quarterback Taylor Elgersma went undrafted last month, but the Canadian had a successful tryout at the Packers’ rookie minicamp last weekend.
The Packers are expected to sign Elgersma, Dave Naylor of TSN reports.
Elgersma had an invite to the Bills’ rookie minicamp this weekend but now will not attend.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers selected Elgersma in the second round of the 2025 Canadian Football League draft last week, the 18th overall pick.
He won this year’s Hec Crighton Trophy as the top football player in U Sports, helping the Golden Hawks advance to the Vanier Cup where they lost to Laval. Elgersma passed for 4,252 yards with 35 touchdowns and 11 interceptions in 13 games this past season. He added seven rushing touchdowns.
He was the first quarterback from a Canadian university to participate in the Senior Bowl.
Malik Willis is the backup to Jordan Love, so Elgersma will compete with Sean Clifford for the No. 3 quarterback.
Wide receiver Elijah Moore officially signed with the Bills on Monday and then met with the media to discuss why he decided to come to Buffalo.
The list of reasons started with the player who will be charged with getting him the ball this fall. Moore said quarterback Josh Allen’s presence made it “very, very easy” to decide on the Bills as his next team.
Moore also cited his fit with the offense when discussing what appealed to him about the Bills. Moore said he was looking for a club where his “talent isn’t really there” and that he found it with the Bills.
“As far as what I bring, it’s kinda not like similar to the other guys in the room,” Moore said, via Matthew Bove of WKBW.
Moore’s addition came after General Manager Brandon Beane pushed back at criticism for not making a bigger move for a receiver during this year’s draft. The veteran might not be as splashy a name as some would have hoped, but the Bills offense hit high levels without them last year and Allen remains reason enough to believe that they’ll be there with Moore as well.
The tush push is about to get shoved out of the rulebook.
It didn’t happen in March. It’s likely coming in two weeks.
Mark Maske of the Washington Post reports that, when the owners meet in Minneapolis on May 20 and 21, they are “expected to consider a revised proposal that would prohibit a teammate from pushing or pulling a ballcarrier anywhere on the field.”
The Packers made a proposal for the March meetings that was hopelessly flawed (it prohibited only an “immediate” push of the player receiving the snap). Given the league’s role in nudging the Lions to propose an altered playoff seeding formula, it’s reasonable to wonder whether the NFL also quietly partnered with the Packers to pulverize the tush push.
The Packers, per the report, have not yet submitted their revised proposal. It is expected to be much broader than their prior proposal, with any and all pushing of the player with the ball banned.
It’s the only way for the NFL to get rid of the tush push without looking like the league is getting rid of the tush push. A more focused proposal (e.g., no pushing in the tackle box) would be too obviously directed at the Eagles.
If/when this proposal passes (and, with the Commissioner seemingly behind it, it likely will), we have two predictions.
One, the officials will not consistently call pushing that happens down the field. At first, there might be a flag or two. Over the long haul, it will be overlooked — just as pulling (which is currently against the rules) has been ignored. For years. (The last flag for assisting a runner was thrown during the 1991 playoffs.)
Two, the Eagles will still run the quarterback sneak on a regular basis. It will still look like it currently does, but for the mini-cluster of players around and behind quarterback Jalen Hurts. And it will still be effective — because it’s far more about the push that happens at the front of the play and less about the push that happens behind it.
The whole thing makes the league look petty. One team has cracked the code on how to get an easy yard or two. The other teams don’t like it. And so, absent any reliable injury data, the league is sounding a safety alarm and/or citing aesthetics and trying to level the playing field by taking away the Eagles’ signature play.
Here’s hoping that the likely change won’t change anything, and that the best strategy will be to tell the other teams to: (1) come up with a way to stop it; and/or (2) figure out how to use it.
Here’s also hoping that the Packers have gotten, or will get, something valuable from the league for becoming the anti-tush push poster child. We doubt that coach Matt LaFleur relishes the perception that he’s the one who got this ball rolling. Our guess is that he had nothing to do with it — and that he’d prefer to keep it that way.
The Nikefication of the NFL will continue.
One of the overlooked items that emerged during the draft is this: Starting in 2025, the NFL will introduce “Rivalries” jerseys inspired by the communities of the teams.
The first wave, debuting in 2025, will cover the teams of the AFC East and NFC West. The league will add two new divisions every year.
Via Jonathan Jones of CBSSports.com, the jerseys will be worn only by the home team in a division rivalry. Every team will be required to wear the “Rivalries” jersey at least once every three years. It can be used more frequently than that, against any of its three division rivals.
The AFC East and NFC West “Rivalries” jerseys will debut later this year, before the start of the season, for the Patriots, Bills, Dolphins, Jets, 49ers, Seahawks, Rams, and Cardinals.
While teams are limited to four games with throwback or alternate jerseys, this is just another jersey that fans can buy. Which is the obvious motivation here. The most zealous fans will want to have another jersey. And another. And another.
Of course, if the economy goes sideways, maybe the fans will have two jerseys instead of thirty.
The Cowboys are declining the fifth-year option of cornerback Kaiir Elam, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reports.
The team acquired Elam in a trade with the Bills this offseason. Buffalo will receive a 2025 fifth-round selection and a 2026 seventh-rounder, while sending a 2025 sixth-round choice to the Cowboys along with Elam.
So, the Cowboys’ decision was expected given the option would have paid him $12.7 million for 2026.
The Bills made Elam a first-round pick in 2022, and he played only 29 of a possible 51 regular-season games, starting only 12.
Elam was unable to beat out the competition in Buffalo, with Christian Benford, Rasul Douglas and Dane Jackson among those who saw more playing time. Elam totaled 81 tackles, six passes defensed and two interceptions with the Bills.
Cowboys outside cornerback Trevon Diggs will miss most if not all of the 2025 season after bone graft surgery on his left knee, and slot corner Jourdan Lewis left for the Jaguars. That gives Elam an opportunity to earn more playing time than he had in Buffalo when he was a healthy scratch for multiple games and played only 939 defensive snaps in his time there.
Bills General Manager Brandon Beane said this week that the team wants to have running back James Cook on the team beyond the 2025 season, but making that happen will require the use of a franchise tag or an agreement on a long-term contract.
Cook made his desired salary of $15 million a year known early in the offseason and Beane said in March that he didn’t see a deal coming together anytime soon, so it wasn’t surprising to learn that Cook is not taking part in the voluntary portion of the team’s offseason program. During an interview with Tyler Dunne of Go Long, Beane said he isn’t concerned about Cook’s absence because he’s confident that the running back knows what he needs to do in 2025 in order to get the kind of contract he wants.
“You’d love for everyone to be here,” Beane said. “Who wouldn’t? You’d love them to be around and start forming that bond. But James is working. I know he’s down there training in South Florida. He’s working. First of all, he’s competitive. And sure, everyone wants to get paid and he knows he’s got to still show he’s James Cook — the guy we saw — if he wants to get that pay day. Either from us or someone else. That’s any player that doesn’t currently have their contract extensions yet.”
Beane said “there’s very few” running backs on the tier of Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffrey, and Derrick Henry when asked about his view on big investments in running backs in general. Cook’s target suggests he feels he is in that tier after 2,834 yards from scrimmage and 24 touchdowns over the last two seasons. Beane’s comments suggest that the third time will have to be the charm.
Free agent wide receiver Elijah Moore is heading to Buffalo.
The Bills have agreed to a one-year deal with Moore. It’s worth “up to” $5 million, according to multiple reports.
What Moore would need to do to make the full $5 million is not known, but he presumably wouldn’t have signed with the Bills if they weren’t going to pay him at least a minimum of $3.428 million, which is the value of the unrestricted free agent tender that the Browns gave to Moore on Monday.
Because the Browns made that tender offer to Moore, this signing with the Bills will count toward the compensatory pick formula. That won’t matter, however, because neither the Browns nor the Bills is expected to receive compensatory picks in the 2026 NFL draft, according to compensatory pick expert Nick Korte.
The 25-year-old Moore was a 2021 second-round pick of the Jets who was traded to the Browns after two years in New York. Last year he caught a career-high 61 passes but averaged a career-low 8.8 yards per catch.
